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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23860093">Home</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissMorwen/pseuds/MissMorwen'>MissMorwen</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>BuckyNat Prompts [28]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Black Widow (Comics), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel 616, Winter Soldier (Comics)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, POV Natasha Romanov, Tumblr Prompt</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 22:15:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,758</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23860093</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissMorwen/pseuds/MissMorwen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>They aren’t memories. That much Natasha is sure of, her dreams never work like that. And they stay with her even after she wakes. She can feel strong, mismatched hands clutching at her, a mouth hot on her skin, and hear the litany of words that spill out of it. So vividly she has to stop herself from checking for bruises when she wakes up.</p><p>*************</p><p>BuckyNat Week prompt: The first time in what feels like forever.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James "Bucky" Barnes/Natasha Romanov</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>BuckyNat Prompts [28]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/438178</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>82</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Home</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/chujo/gifts">chujo</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>If you haven’t read the comics then all you need to know is this: A man named Leo from Bucky’s past punished Bucky by erasing all Natasha’s memories of Bucky and their relationship. Marvel has been <strike>torturing us</strike> hinting at the relationship ever since without reestablishing it.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There are gaps in Natasha’s memory. Blank spots from living a longer life than most people, and gaps that feel like a missing tooth. A cavity in her mind that she can’t stop probing at despite the pounding headache it will leave her with. Then there are the blank spots that she doesn’t know about. The ones that she only discovers when it’s too late. Like spotting recognition in a stranger’s face.</p><p>The last kind scared her, and she didn’t like being scared.</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>The place she has lived in for the past few years is too big and too small at the same time. Her footsteps echo when she moves between rooms and why did she even think she needed that many rooms anyway? She has no use for all of them and they make the place feel empty, hollowed out. Moving on is easy. She has never liked being tied to one place for long. Home is a concept and not one she has an urge to embrace. Besides, the new place comes with furniture and the privacy that being new grands her.</p><p>(It comes with a cat too, but she hasn’t decided if that counts as a pro or a con.)</p><p>Clean slate sort of thing. Not that her slate can ever be considered clean. But the change of pace is nice. Being treated as a human being instead of an Avenger or an untrustworthy spy. Natasha has talked with the downstairs neighbor a few times and not once have they talked about the end of the world or alien invasions or the latest crop superpowered villains. Instead, it has been about the bakery a few blocks away that she just has to try and the cat that has somehow become a permanent fixture in Natasha’s life. Little things that don’t matter much.</p><p>It’s nice, makes her feel almost human again.</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>Life goes on. She works almost constantly and when she doesn’t, she grows restless. Working leaves her no time to dwell on whatever inane reasons Leo had for doing what he did to her or if he did more than to make her his puppet for a few days. (Or why sometimes she will walk into a room or hear a certain phrase being spoken and it will make her skin feel too tight.)</p><p>Work forces her to focus on the present, she needs that reminder these days. Too much history for her to get lost in if she indulges. Working is easy compared to that.</p><p>With her head occupied by work, she doesn’t think much of it at first. Barnes grew up around the same time as Steve did. Both act weirdly courteously at times. She can’t even remember the first time she heard about him. It’s buried somewhere in her past. Either during his time as a sidekick to Captain America or when he was the Winter Soldier. But the point is that she has known <em>of</em> him, she hasn’t really known the man himself. They travel in similar circles even if those circles don’t often intersect. So, she doesn’t find it odd when he treats her with more courtesy than he does other people. Natasha heard about him in the Red Room, he might have heard about the Black Widow program and what it put them through.</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>The thing is, she thinks they might have been close once, her and Barnes. His touch doesn’t provoke her usual urge to strike out hard and fast the way most people’s touch do. And they make a good team. They move around each other without having to tell the other what they are doing. Fighting with him by her side is easy.</p><p>What’s more, he begins to enter her dreams.</p><p>They aren’t memories. That much Natasha is sure of, her dreams never work like that. And they stay with her even after she wakes. She can feel strong, mismatched hands clutching at her, a mouth hot on her skin, and hear the litany of words that spill out of it. So vividly she has to stop herself from checking for bruises when she wakes up.</p><p>And it’s not just one night.</p><p>Night after night she presses close to a body that isn’t there when she wakes up. Night after night she wakes up gasping on a bed as wide as an ocean.</p><p>She needs to do something about it or else she’ll go mad.</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p> </p><p>James is nowhere to be found, of course. Or at least not anywhere she can easily reach out to him. If she sends out feelers to check up on his whereabouts, he might take it the wrong way. The man values his privacy and she can’t begrudge him that.</p><p>So, Natasha does what she has done for a while: she waits and after a long while he turns up in the last place that she expects him to.</p><p>The safehouse is hers and while she hasn’t used that particular safehouse in years the silent alarm she rigged it with works just fine. The grainy images show her a dark-haired man who is easily identified as James when he reaches out with his left hand to turn off the alarm. Metal fingers aren’t that common after all.</p><p>Paris it is then.</p><p>She knocks on the door to her safehouse the next day.</p><p>James opens it with a wary look on his face. “Na—Natasha? What are you doing here?” He stumbles a little over her name. It’s not the first time either.</p><p>She tilts her head at him. “I’m supposed to be the one with the memory problems, not you. This is my safehouse.”</p><p>He looks… embarrassed. It looks wrong, his features aren’t made to look embarrassed. Skin rasps against skin when he rubs a hand over the back of his neck. (Is his flesh and bone hand calloused like her hands are? Is its touch as gentle as her dreams have told her?) “Sorry. I’ll pack up. Leave you to it.” He opens the door all the way, turns back to the apartment.</p><p>She stops him with a hand on his wrist before he gets very far. “James, wait.”</p><p>The light touch is enough to freeze him in his tracks. He turns his head to look at her but doesn’t speak.</p><p>“I came because I wanted to talk with you.”</p><p>His mouth opens, closes, then opens again. “Alright. Come on in.”</p><p>His footsteps are silent on the carpeted floor and she tries very hard not to wonder if the tee stretched over his broad shoulders hides a network of lines she – well, remember is the wrong word but so is imagine – the bloody tracks she is pretty sure she has dug into his back during their past relationship.</p><p>“D’you want something?” asks James when they reach the doorway to the kitchen. “I have coffee, beer, and, uh, leftover Thai food.”</p><p>“Coffee is fine,” says Natasha and tries to not sound amused.</p><p>She continues to the living room while he goes into the kitchen. Laid out on the dinner table are a variety of firearms and a cleaning kit. The brand of the gun oil is unfamiliar to her and she steps closer to look at it, but the smell pulls at something deep inside. The blank series of blank spots she has only recently begun to discover. The blank spots that could have killed her if the person holding the key to them had been a different person.</p><p>Trust, she thinks, it’s about trust. (It’s not something she has a lot of experience with.)</p><p>The touch of the back of a hand against her elbow brings her back to reality. She whirls around and finds James standing with a steaming coffee mug in his hand. The wary look is back. He holds out the cup to her. Ripples on the surface of the coffee betray his seemingly steady hand. “What did you want to talk about?”</p><p>She takes the offered cup. The liquid inside is nearly black, the smell of it strong. She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, uses the time to slow the beating of her heart. “What do you think I want to talk about?” Because she can't acuse him of lying to her when he looks at her like that. Can't break a heart that's already broken. (Besides, who is she to blame anyone for lying?)</p><p>His face twists up. There’s pain there that much is obvious, but relief, too. “I’m sorry. If I could take it back, I would. If I could go back—”</p><p>She stops the cascade of words with a finger. (The power she has over him with the simplest gestures is dizzying.) “You loved me?”</p><p>He nods. Finds his voice again to answer, “Yes.”</p><p>“And I loved you?”</p><p>No hesitation this time either. “Yes.”</p><p>The certainty in James’ voice and in his stance makes Natasha shiver. She puts the cup down on the table next to them, a few drops of coffee spill onto the bare wood. She is kidding herself if she thinks she’s the only one with that strange power. “Why did you keep it from me?”</p><p>“I didn’t want to put you through that hell again. I wanted to keep you safe. Natalia, I…” He pauses and she thinks he’s about to launch into another apology. “I will tell you whatever you want. I’ll stay away if you want me to. I don’t—I just want you to be happy.”</p><p>His skin is rough with stubble when she cups his jaw. “What makes you think that you staying away will make me happy? It hasn’t so far.”</p><p>James leans into her touch. Gently, as if he’s afraid she’ll pull back. In a voice that nearly breaks, he murmurs, “I missed you.”</p><p>It shouldn’t be possible to miss something she doesn’t remember having, but she has. “Show me,” Natasha says and closes the gap between them.</p><p>He is warm, so much warmer than the facsimile of him who visited her in her dreams were, but his arms are as strong, and his mouth is as eager. It’s easy then to let him embrace her, to let him cover her with kisses and to answer each one of them with equal hunger. To dig her fingers into him with a promise of never letting go again. She doesn’t remember him, but her body does. For the first time in what feels like forever she is home. For the first time in what feels like forever she has a home.</p>
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